Chennai: The Madras High Court will, on Monday, hear a plea by AIADMK General Council member, M. Shanmugham, seeking to restrain the party from holding the body’s meeting on July 11.
The court will also take a call on staying the appointment of senior AIADMK leader A. Tamilmagan Hussain as the party Presidium’s Chairman.
A bench of Justices M. Duraiswamy and Sunder Mohan would also take up the petition filed by Shanmugham on the alleged contempt of court proceedings against senior leaders K. Palaniswami, CVe Shanmugham, D. Jayakumar, Hussain, K.P. Munusamy, and Dindigul Sreenivasan.
The petitioner, in a series of sub-applications filed in a pending appeal, told the court that the AIADMK’s founding leader M.G. Ramachandran had wanted its supreme leader to always be elected by the primary members of the party and that the bylaws of the party were drafted in this manner.
He cited the election of O. Panneerselvam and Palaniswami, jointly elected as the Coordinator and Co-coordinator of the party, respectively, through a single vote process in December 2021. Such election process needs to be ratified in the party General Council held on June 23, the applicant said.
Shanmugham, in the petition, said that he had filed a civil suit in the High Court on June 22 when he came to know that there was a plan to pass a resolution in favour of a single leadership in the June 23 General Council meet and sought an interim order restraining the party from passing any such resolution.
While a single-judge bench refused to issue an interim order, a division bench, headed by Justice Duraiswamy, restrained the General Council from taking a decision on any new resolution but for the 23 resolutions that had been approved by Panneerselvam.
The court heard the petition at the residence of Justice Duraiswamy at 2.30 a.m. on June 23 and passed the order at 4.40 a.m.
The petitioner, in the complaint, said that Palaniswami moved a resolution, seconded by Jayakumar and Sreenivasan, to appoint Hussain as the party Presidium Chairman.
Shanmugham argued that Hussain, Palaniswami, Sreenivasan, and Jayakumar were guilty of contempt of court as Hussain had announced that the next General Council meeting would be held on July 11. He said that the actions of Hussain were circumventing court orders.
The petitioner also sought to restrain the conduct of the next General Council on July 11, punish the AIADMK leaders for contempt, and stay the appointment of Hussain.
(IANS)
